Letters, March 30: Greenhouse-gas law gores state businesses

BUENA PARK, Daniel A. Thurber: When Assembly Bill 32, which enabled the cap-and-trade bill, was introduced, public universities supported the act to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, despite the fact that the impact, when fully implemented, will cost our economy up to $180 billion ["UC, CSU could get a pass on emissions," Local, March 26].

MCT Illustration

Virtually every study produced by California's public university system, at taxpayers' expense, glorified the benefits of AB 32. Now the university system is finding out that the results of its folly will be millions of dollars in cap-and-trade costs, which taxpayers will eventually have to pay since the university system does not generate revenue.

As expected, a "white knight," Republican State Senator Mimi Walters, has appeared on the scene. She has proposed a bill to exempt the California university system from AB32. According to Walters, "Our No. 1 job is to educate our children and to make education affordable and to add more of a burden on our UCs and our CSUs is wrong."

Sacramento passed a bill that will kill business and jobs in this state. Yet it appears that, at the same time, the university system, which emphatically supported AB32, will be exempt while the rest of us will end up paying higher taxes due to the legislation.

The university system should cut its budgets, including staff and those fat pensions, to offset the cost of their folly. I also think the entire state Legislature should take a 10 percent pay cut.

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FOUNTAIN VALLEY, William B. Bingham: The truth has finally come out that "cap-and-trade" (AB32) is horribly expensive. State Senator Mimi Walters' solution? Exempt the state universities from its crippling effects. Does she not know that AB32 will also have crippling effects on many businesses, many of which employ the parents of the CSU and UC students? Those businesses may be forced to leave California for a less hostile environment.

Sen. Walters' efforts would be better spent overturning AB32 so everybody would benefit, not just state institutions.

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ANAHEIM, Richard J. Stegemeier: It's been said that the best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it to the hilt. If greenhouse gases are really causing global climate change, then there should be no exceptions at all to AB32. State Senator Mimi Walters says our job is to educate our children, not to combat climate change.

Most all of us agree. But an exemption for state universities and no other institution is grossly unfair. That's like saying we can combat disease by washing only one hand to save soap.

People will rise up in indignation over a bad law only if the majority's ox is being gored. So let's gore everybody's ox, and repeal AB 32 before it devours all of us.

The truth about marriage

SANTA ANA, Stephanie Georgieff: Within the many issues surrounding Proposition 8 and marriage equality, there are points that are not discussed in passionate debates by activists on either side. The crux of so-called marriage equality lies in the separation of church and state. The history of marriage is very unromantic and non-spiritual. During the Middle Ages, when the Vatican was battling the nobility for control, marriage was an arena that both sides found convenient. If the church could have power over the family through dictating the parameters of marriage and clergy, the nobility found it useful to have a celibate clergy as a place to put non-productive wives, extra daughters and sons.

Marriage is about personal power, business and property. The state should have no say in any relationship between any consenting adult of any gender, nor should the state dictate how many people can participate in such an arrangement, as in the case of polygamy. If people want to, and choose to live in sexual and religious partnership, it really is no one's business. The state uses marriage to create revenue and exert control over the most intimate and private of relationships.

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